READ: The Party

I woke up this morning and discovered that everything is wrong with our political lives in this country and if it isn’t addressed as soon as possible, then our problems in this country will continue to linger for centuries to come. They say ‘every problem has to be attacked from its very roots’ and it is understandable that ours have dated back since 1952, but considering that we underwent several military regimes and are now back to democracy, our root is now from 1998 at the creation of our political parties that do not possess a single IDEOLOGY (An ideology is a set of conscious and unconscious ideas that constitute one’s goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology is a comprehensive vision, a way of looking at things as in several philosophical tendencies, or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society )

Political ideology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology#Political_ideologies) is a certain ethical set of ideals, principles, doctrines, myths, or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group that explains how society should work, and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order. All political parties base their actions and programs on ideologies the party was founded on or amendments with the times and era.

In every society, it is common knowledge that we have the set of people who are not interested in politics or ideologies and just cast their votes to a candidate because of his good looks and white teeth. In our country, the political active citizens don’t even know why they joined a party and its safe to say they did so because it is the incumbent one in their local or state government of their states and probably their countries too. The percentage of people that take the debates (gubernatorial and presidential) very serious is not up to 1% of the eligible voters. You give someone control over your lives for the next 4years and you don’t even know what to expect from him, but you did because you profited from the elections, or you just followed the bandwagon and the slogan was tight “OBP lole se (It is OBP that can do it)” and you jeopardize your future and those of your kids.

Consider your candidates as a voter and consider the political parties as an active member before you indulge in these activities. Don’t waste/sell your vote (future), and also don’t waste your time shouting a slogan when you don’t even know why you joined a party. We have matured and although a clean and fair (bleach) election seems farfetched, but we can get closer (bar-soap) to it and understand the levity and importance of that your 1vote. The power is in our hands and it is high time every political party gave us their ideologies and not mottos (justice, peace, faith etc.), we want to know if you believe every Nigerian has a right to bear arms or not, gay marriage is supported or not, capital punishment passed or not, economic policies (capitalism: rich gets richer, socialism: rich are taxed higher and the poor benefits via free health etc., or mixed economy: don’t know what it means), ages to be to participate in societal activities (marriage, voting, drinking, gambling etc.), education policies, etc.

Once this is settled, you will complain when it is needed as a supporter of the ruling party when these ideologies are not being effected into their supposed areas, and of course the supporters of the other parties will forever complain (since their ideologies don’t match) and once they can give reasons to why the new policies should or shouldn’t be passed, then the ruling government (which is democratic by the way) will forever harken to the voice of its people.

That’s about it for this article. For the roads and electricity problem, no ideology is required for these problems.